Africa Wild

Towering over the "roadblock " ,

then moved off ....



At first I thought maybe it could be Shashanga again , but , we saw him only three days ago , some distance away , but when I looked closer .... well , well, well , my old friend Mpenza , whom I first met in 2010 . At that time he still had both tusks , and a collar too , but no , only his left tusk





I think while going past him there in the road , old Mpenza had probably whispered in his ear " You've had you fun fella , now move off , and let those nice folks pass " .

We had to wait another ten minutes or so , before the roadblock moved into the bush so that we could carry on , altogether waiting almost 60 minutes .

As you said , Nan , nice to meet up again with old friends

Great, okie!

I think that first bull has lost the tip of his tail?

indeed, great

you think it will easier to ID... with the tail

Hmmm... the tail could be diagnostic , but I would rather look at his trunk

Okie,
Great tusker hunting !! Can't imagine that some of these big boys are looking so angry to you... think you have to learn a bit more about whispering ...

okie wrote:Hmmm... the tail could be diagnostic , but I would rather look at his trunk

aat wrote:Thanks Pumbaa,
Great to see your pics of Mahlahini and Nsemani and I agree with you it's wonderful to see a tusker again after years , kind of special feeling.
This one near Mooiplaas I am not sure. Are both pics of the same bull ? First picture I was thinking of potential tusker Mopani_01 based on earmarks of the right ear, but second picture does not match with the left ear and looks like his left tusk is very short (broken)

Pumbaa wrote:Welcome back Aat

unfortunately these were the only shots we got from this tusker at Mooiplaas waterhole on 21.02.14

Aat It was definitely the same tusker

At jinne the Tuskers are great.

@ All

Christmas time... always a good moment to think about the year that is almost history.

2014 for the tuskers:
What can I say?
Some remarkable things happened like moving with many tusker friends to this "platform" with tusker threads and lots of postings of these gentle giants.
Being able to update our tusker site many many times with named, newly named, and new section with potential tuskers
Surprizes with new pictures of some tuskers I almost assumed they were not among us anymore like Ngunyupezi and Shashanga
Tusker site restyled to make it more user friendly
Support by many of you to make it possible.

Black pages this year? Yes, the poaching of so many big tuskers in africa , specially in Kenya / Tanzania and west african countries where the bush elephant is in real danger.
We also lost several big tuskers in south africa like Isilo and some others in Tembe EP.

Great things ? Yes... it's wonderful to see how tuskers devellop over the years. I think I mentioned a few earlier like Nkombo, Mandzemba, Nhlowa, Kaleka, Ngodzi, Nwanetsi, Mavatsani and several others. Recognized by us several years ago and now we can see why
It's wonderful to look at their pictures made in 2005, 2006 etc and the recent pictures 2013 - 2014 , looking at the tusks , how (fast) they grow , their ranges and other things.

For me it's also a great thing that the number of supporting people is still growing

No more text but a salute to all of you , Merry X-Mas and a very healthy 2015

Thanks, aat, for all you do!

Next year will be a full one!

Thank you Aat for your great commitment It is always a pleasure to visit the Tusker topics and your Tusker site